Our culture claims to teach individuality.  When you’re young, you are told you can be anything when you grow up.  I don’t know about you guys, but I took that message very seriously. 

That was for the first 15 years… then, they change it around. 

“Well, you can be whatever you want, but right now we have to focus on getting into college.  And, by the way, whatever you want to be when you grow up, you have to find a college that has that major and study the dickens out of it.  And if they don’t have your interest as a major, forget about it.  Pick another major – it will probably land you in a more lucrative job anyway.  And, by the way, if you don’t know what you want to do… go to college anyway.  You won’t be wasting your time, and surely you will figure it out eventually.”

In college, they are very big on you grasping these great and foreign concepts of “creativity” and “critical thinking.”  They even have classes on it.  My friend took one, and actually it sounds like fun, but that is beside the point.  The point is, I thought creativity and critical thinking were things you picked up just from existing in real life.

Something is wrong here. 

Be yourself.  But you must conform. 

Be creative!  Think for yourself, by all means!  But stop – you’re not doing it right! 

Why teach us to be individuals for a while, and then change around (right at the time of the teenage identity crises) and say we must fit in a box with everyone else?  Suddenly, dreams are forgotten and replaced with an artificial motivation to get into college and study something that “probably sounds good… I guess, anyway…”

Do yourself and the world at your fingertips a favor: be yourself, and don’t conform.  Do what you need to do to get by, and then reach for the stars.  Don’t listen to anybody who tries to put you in a box: people in boxes don’t change the world.